Rust IOCTL Driver

minimal windows kernel driver written in rust for usermode-kernel communication via ioctl

what is this

simple example showing how to send messages from usermode app to kernel driver using ioctl mechanism. usermode client sends a string, kernel driver receives it and prints it via dbgprint.

usermode app  -->  IOCTL  -->  kernel driver  -->  debug output

structure

driver/  - kernel driver (no_std rust)
client/  - usermode client app

build

cd driver && cargo build --release
copy target\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\release\ioctl_driver.dll target\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\release\ioctl_driver.sys
cd ../client && cargo build --release

setup

1. enable test signing (disable secure boot in bios first)

bcdedit /set testsigning on

reboot

2. create & sign driver

New-SelfSignedCertificate -Type CodeSigningCert -Subject "CN=TestDriverCert" -CertStoreLocation Cert:\CurrentUser\My
$cert = Get-ChildItem -Path Cert:\CurrentUser\My | Where-Object {$_.Subject -eq "CN=TestDriverCert"} | Select-Object -First 1
Export-Certificate -Cert $cert -FilePath TestDriverCert.cer
Import-Certificate -FilePath TestDriverCert.cer -CertStoreLocation Cert:\LocalMachine\Root
Import-Certificate -FilePath TestDriverCert.cer -CertStoreLocation Cert:\LocalMachine\TrustedPublisher
Set-AuthenticodeSignature -FilePath "target\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\release\ioctl_driver.sys" -Certificate $cert

3. load driver

sc create IoctlDriver binPath= "C:\full\path\to\ioctl_driver.sys" type= kernel start= demand
sc start IoctlDriver

4. run client

cd client
cargo run --release
cargo run --release "custom message"

output

use DebugView (run as admin, enable capture kernel)

client:

[client] device opened successfully
[client] sending msg to kernel: 'i watch the moon'
[client] success! msg sent to kernel

kernel:

[driver] initializing ioctl driver...
[driver] ready & loaded
[ioctl] recv request from usermode
[ioctl] msg from usermode: i watch the moon

tech

• ioctl code: 0x222000 (CTL_CODE macro)
• device: \Device\IoctlTest → \DosDevices\IoctlTest
• method: METHOD_BUFFERED
• deps: wdk-sys for kernel bindings

cleanup

sc stop IoctlDriver
sc delete IoctlDriver
bcdedit /set testsigning off

license

MIT